The idea of personalized medicine—custom-tailoring a person’s medical treatment to suit their unique genetic profile—has made a leap forward with the debut of the $100 genome. Sequencing the three billion characters that make up a person’s genes has cost thousands of dollars in the past. Not long ago, the cost was slashed to $500. Now,...
Category: TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE
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Top Trend: Going Off the Driverless Cliff: NOT ROAD-READY: SELF-DRIVING CARS IN 392 CRASHES
From 1 July, 2021, through May 15 of this year, cars with so-called “advanced driver-assistance technologies”—essentially self-driving cars— were involved in 392 crashes, more than one a day, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Five people died in the accidents; six were seriously injured. Tesla’s “Autopilot” state-of-the-art self-driving system was involved in...
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CHEAP GEL DRAWS LITERS OF WATER A DAY FROM AIR
The Canadian prairie, parts of South America, and large swaths of Africa are in prolonged drought; the U.S. southwest is the driest it’s been in a century and the Ogallala Aquifer underlying the central U.S. is being pumped out faster than its water is being replenished. In a drying world, where will our drinking water...
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FOR THE FIRST TIME, EXPERIMENTAL DRUG CURED CANCER IN ALL PATIENTS
Dostarlimab, an experimental drug developed by pharma company GSK, cured rectal cancer in all 12 patients who took part in an initial trial. The drug was administered every three weeks for six months. At the end of the trial, all 12 patients showed no sign of cancer on MRIs or PET scans, or in an...
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“ELECTRIC ROAD” LETS EVs RUN INDEFINITELY WITHOUT A BATTERY CHARGE
A half-hour north of Milan, Italy, a loop of paved road two-thirds of a mile long, about 1,050 meters, lets electric vehicles (EVs) run as long as their drivers want without stopping to charge batteries. The test road was laid by Stellantis—the conglomerate that owns Chrysler, Fiat, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, and other car brands—and dubbed...
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BRAIN’S WIRING DETERMINES POLITICAL LEANINGS, STUDY SHOWS
You probably thought that you’re politically liberal or conservative because your trenchant analysis of the issues has brought you greater wisdom than those on the other side of the political divide. Wrong. Your political conviction is the end product of upbringing and experiences that have wired your brain in a particular way, according to a...
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THE CUSTOMIZED, 3D-PRINTED, SEVEN-SECOND MEDICATION
The evolving technologies of personalized medicine—tailoring treatment of an illness to each individual’s medical and biological profile—has gotten a boost from University College London’s new method of 3D-printing medications on demand. The technique combines dissolved drugs in a resin with a biologically inert chemical that hardens under light. When used at full scale, the technique...
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PHARMA DOWN ON THE FARM
The Nobel-winning CRISPR gene-snipping technology has worked its way into leading-edge medicine, from editing out the malaria-spreading gene in mosquitoes to treating sickle-cell anemia. Next, it’s going to work on our crops. “The most widely impactful applications of CRISPR in the near term, for many of us, are going to be in the agricultural sector,”...
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WILL ELECTROFUELS GET TRACTION?
Battery technologies grab the headlines, but hydrogen has been touted as a clean, abundant alternative fuel that literally is all around us: hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Unfortunately, carbon waste gases are becoming increasingly common as well. Electrofuels combine the two. Hydrogen for fuel usually is distilled from natural gas. In...
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AUTOMATING THE TRAFFIC COP
Pittsburgh has retired the white gloves and the whistle and turned traffic management over to something it calls Scalable Urban Traffic Control, or Surtrac. Surtrac is an artificial intelligence that instantly analyzes data taken from cameras, stoplight controls, and sensors at individual intersections so the stop-and-go lights there can decide how long to stay red...
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